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arrangement which, I believe, has been loyally kept by both sides, and
which has worked very satisfactorily.
The correspondence here printed fully records the incident.
Mr. Dickins' first letter of complaint.
(Copy).
155, Old Kent Road. S.E.
23rd November, 1906.
Dear Sir,
Bolls Estate and Southwark Borough Council.
38, London Eoad.
On 16th inst. I wrote you that a final notice had been served on
these premises that I had tested the drains without obtaining any
result, and I suggested that your Inspector should meet my Representative
on the premises and again test them.
He did so on 20th inst., and no result being obtained and hearing
nothing further from you I concluded that the matter was at an end.
To-day, however, the tenant has shewn me a notice stating that his
drains would be exposed after 24 hours by order of the Sanitary
Authorities. I will say nothing of the lack of courtesy you have
shewn in dealing with the Representative of an Estate the owner of
which has invariably done his utmost to act in a spirit of amity with
the 'Public Authorities, but it appears to me that when all other
efforts to discover a defect fail, to resort to Section 40 of the Public
Health Act, 1891, is an abuse of power never contemplated when
that Act was framed. To expose drains that have been in existence
many years is as oppressive and unreasonable an action as to water
test them, such drains though they may be perfectly efficient being
sure to be technically defective, though by no means so much so as
to cause a nuisance or to be injurious to health.
I submit that in conferring almost unlimited power on the
Sanitary Authorities Parliament contemplated it being used reasonably
and fairly.
Lord Llangattock has been and is always anxious to assist
Public Bodies in improving the surroundings of his tenants, but he
has not unnaturally hoped that such bodies would act with him, and
in a spirit of fairness and moderation, and that their efforts would be
directed to secure the welfare and prosperity of the householders of
Southwark.